Hungary to provide free tickets to Brussels for migrants trying to enter the EU

BUDAPEST: Hungary s anti immigration government is prepared to provide free one way tickets to Brussels for migrants and asylum seekers attempting to...

BUDAPEST: Hungary's anti-immigration government is prepared to provide free one-way tickets to Brussels for migrants and asylum seekers attempting to enter the European Union, a minister said on Thursday in response to hefty fines recently imposed on the country over its restrictive asylum policies.

Speaking at a news conference in Budapest, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, criticized a June ruling by the European Court of Justice that ordered Hungary to pay a fine of 200 million euros ($216 million) for persistently breaking the bloc’s asylum rules, and an additional 1 million euros per day until it brings its policies into line with EU law.

"Brussels wants to force us at any cost to let migrants in,” Gulyás said, referring to the EU's headquarters in Belgium.

He said that if the EU continues to force regulations on Hungary that "does not make it possible to detain migrants at the border,” his country will offer every migrant "transport to Brussels free of charge.”

Hungary’s anti-immigrant government has taken a hard line on people entering the country since well over 1 million people entered Europe in 2015, most of them fleeing conflict in Syria. The country built fences protected by razor wire on its southern borders with Serbia and Croatia and a pair of transit zones for holding asylum seekers on its border with Serbia. Those transit zones have since closed.